The monthly TIOBE Programming Index has chosen the Python programming language as the winner for August 2022, which was already the winner of the year in 2021.
Each month, the TIOBE Programming Community Index publishes a listing of popular programming languages. Although not undisputed overall – especially with regard to the data basis – this list still offers interesting insights into the popularity of the programming languages for August 2022.
Python still at the forefront
The TIOBE Programming Community Index is described by the makers as an indicator of the popularity of programming languages. In addition to the monthly update, they also announce an overall winner every year. In 2021, Python was the clear winner. The programming language can now also claim pole position in the monthly report for August 2022.
Python grew another 2 percent this month, according to TIOBE numbers. The programming language has now reached an all-time high with 15.42 percent market share. The makers of the TIOBE index justify this success with the fact that there is hardly any area of programming in which Python is not currently used extensively. The only exception they point out is (security-critical) embedded systems, which they justify with the fact that Python is dynamically typed and too slow. That is why – the report goes on to say – the higher-performance languages C and C++ are also enjoying increasing popularity.
While Apple’s programming language Swift was still in the top ten in the 2021 annual ranking, it has now swapped places with PHP and is in 11th place. Among other things, critics of the TIOBE Index repeatedly complain that some programming languages such as Rust and Kotlin, which are quite well represented in the public eye, occupy less prominent positions here. While, according to TIOBE, Rust is slowly approaching the top field with 20th place, Kotlin is in 29th place. Carbon, the C++ successor recently announced by Google, was first mentioned in 192nd place.
Programming language ranking remains difficult
Such rankings not only stimulate discussions, but often also provoke violent opposition. The publishers of the TIOBE Index therefore repeatedly point out that it is not about the best programming language or “the language with the most lines of code”.
Among other things, search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are still used to calculate the ratings. If you look at the definition of the TIOBE Programming Index on the website, you will still find a list of 25 search engines with the note that these are the search engines ranked highest by Alexa that meet certain criteria. However, Alexa.com was already shut down by Amazon on May 1st, 2022, while the APIs can still be used until December 15th, 2022. After that, the TIOBE team will no longer have access to it either. After all, other ranking sites such as the Google search query-based PYPL Popularity of Programming Language Index put Python at the top of their list, although the results differ in detail.
